what he meant was in this era, if you seek a total solution, you may end up with a total cla calamity. you have to be ready to find common ground. kennedy felt that way. everything we know from the soviet union proves that khrushchev felt the same way. how fortunate were we those were the two people. how fortunate that they were the two people in charge at a moment like that in u.s. world history. >> and not fidel castro. may i say one more thing to close out the point that jim and i were making. is it even wonder then given what we've said about fidel castro's behavior especially on that last day, black saturday, is it any wonder that khrushchev was suddenly in a great hurry to settle the crisis peacefully? he did that by the next day. he could have gotten a better deal from kennedy especially with regard to the jupiters and turkey. khrushchev was in a hurry. he was desperately afraid that he was playing with fire. fidel had some responsibility for the shoot down of the u-2. fidel wrote the bizarre letter advocating a preemptive nuclear attack. and perhaps worst of all if it's possib